As many people practice social distancing and in some cases isolation, technology has proven our greatest ally, keeping us connected person to person and business to consumer. Before the pandemic, people were already engaging with companies across multiple channels, by voice, text, chat, video, and social media, growing accustomed to choosing how we want to engage and getting a quick response. Now, as people are dispersed and businesses shut down, albeit temporary, these multi-channel communications have become vital. Companies and organizations have been resourceful during these uncertain times, exploring new outlets, some even changing business models as they move quickly to communicate in real-time with customers, employees and associates.

The response and urgency with which we all had to react to COVID-19 came on quickly. Suddenly, we found ourselves having to ramp up an offsite workforce, testing company productivity, IT teams and infrastructure. While some had remote employees or work from home policies, a completely remote workforce and IT infrastructure operating out of office was not a fully baked plan for most.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, working remotely was already more popular than ever before. One Gallup survey in 2019 found that more than 40% of Americans worked from home occasionally, and in recent years, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) noted that roughly 16% of Americans (nearly 30 million people) now work remotely on a regular basis.

A TBI Case Study

In the past week, we have seen an incredible change in how the country is reacting to the pandemic. Just last week many organizations were attempting to create or solidify contingency plans “if” the need to transition to a remote workforce arose - this week, that became a reality for a large majority of organizations across the globe. From finance and marketing to technology and education, working from home has suddenly become the “new normal” for the foreseeable future, and securing your remote workforce has become a top concern.

All companies, including those not yet directly impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak, have a limited amount of time to make sure that they are prepared if/when the virus hits their area, maybe even directly in their organization. Right now, companies are advised to do a function-by-function audit as well as a holistic overview to identify areas needing immediate attention— addressing network security gaps, revisiting work from home policies, or tackling potential operational shortfalls, such as lack of cloud communication tools. 

The IaaS market is projected to post a CAGR of 31.45% between 2020-2024. (Market Reports World)

Worldwide Spending on Digital Transformation Will Reach $2.3 Trillion in 2023 (IDC)

This year, this decade, we’re focused on elevating the partner experience and leveraging innovations with automation, intelligence and mobility to help improve both the employee and customer experience. TBI’s 2020 word of the year is EXPERIENCE.

I’m not telling anyone anything they don’t already know when I say we’ll be hearing a lot about SDN, IoT, Edge Compute and Mobility this year.

This is the final post in a three-part series where we’re taking a closer look at various cloud-related solutions, what’s trending, and partner expectations as we head into 2020.

By 2020, the number of connected devices across all technologies will reach nearly 21 billion. -Gartner

This is the second in a three-part series that will run monthly through the end of the year where we’ll be taking a close look at various cloud-related solutions, what’s trending, and partner expectations as we head into 2020.

It’s common knowledge that cyberattacks are increasing in frequency every year, and companies of all sizes are continuing their migration to the cloud at a record-setting pace; as a result, while these are not a new phenomenon, both cloud accounts and credentials have become the primary targets for black hat hackers.

This is the first in a three-part series that will run monthly through the end of the year where we’ll be taking a close look at various cloud-related solutions, what’s trending, and partner expectations as we head into 2020.

Q4 is upon us, and we’re entering the home stretch for the year—and the decade. Businesses of all sizes are looking back on 2019 to audit crucial infrastructure and evaluate performance and cost-effectiveness to inform both their short-term organizational investments as well as long-term planning.

Selling mobility? What does the category “mobility” actually mean in channel? From fixed wireless to backup, IoT and management and actual devices, there is no shortage of solutions to sell.

The infiltration of mobile devices in the workplace isn’t new news; although it may be hard to believe, mobile devices entered the workforce just a little more than a decade ago. More recently, the influx of BYOD, the ever-growing number of remote workers, and the mind-blowing pace at which technology is advancing have kept IT departments on their toes and CIOs awake at night trying to manage it all. As such, it should come as no surprise that with this increase comes growing strain and an increasing number of obstacles facing a CIO; they and their staff need to continuously shift their priorities and strategies to accommodate the current challenges that are plaguing their organization and adapting to the constant changes.

Understanding the Alphabet 

Before diving into network soup and getting a better grasp on how the various solutions work together, it is imperative to understand them individually.

According to IDG Research , The SD-WAN market is expected to reach $8B by 2021. SD-WAN sales and implementations are growing. The report indicates that adoption rates increased from 35% to 54% over the past two years, with 90% of their respondents saying they are actively researching, piloting or about to upgrade to SD-WAN. And the reason for growth is to solve for a few business challenges, mainly: optimizing networks to support cloud technologies, simplifying network management and improving application performance which all, in turn, help deliver on a better customer experience.

No matter what type of business your company conducts, even if it is technology-based, your business can benefit from an outside set of eyes. The technology and data surrounding cybersecurity are constantly changing and evolving. This means that while you may have some of the most brilliant tech minds around grinding out your code, their focus is not necessarily security -- and the result is vulnerability.

It’s interesting to note that device loss accounts for 41% of breaches, compared with 25% that derived from hacking and malware, according to Trend Micro. Overall, there has been a 300% increase in mobile device OS vulnerabilities since 2011, and businesses are realizing the increasingly critical need to protect company—and customer data. As networking environments have evolved, IT departments have adapted to growing security threats in mobile devices. Cabir, the first virus that infected smartphones, reared its ugly head in 2004, and by the time iPhones and other smartphones emerged, a whole new generation of security woes had been born.

Although unified communications (UC) systems and contact center solutions have previously been thought of as separate entities, cloud technology has increasingly facilitated collaboration between the two. The Cloud removed the restrictions of on-prem hardware which enables the contact center solution's remarkable versatility and fluidity - both crucial strengths required to provide the increasingly personalized and convenient services demanded by customers in the digital age.